Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Julian’s Scrawings @scrawlings.bsky.social · 1d

Credit where credit is due: Pinterest has made it easy to indicate that you don’t want AI material suggested to you.

People who upload AI images will still try to sneak underneath the radar. But recognising the desire to avoid AI and making significant supportive steps speaks well of Pinterest.

Julian’s Scrawings @scrawlings.bsky.social · 1d

Drama about carry on luggage allowances again. If checking in luggage was a more predictable lower cost I think people would check in more and carry on less and the boarding and disembarking experience would be smoother. But luggage also needs to arrive undamaged or be extravagantly compensated.

1 1

Julian’s Scrawings @scrawlings.bsky.social · 2d

You won’t find a more succinct description of late stage capitalism.

Jonathan Edward Durham @thisone0verhere.bsky.social · 2d

2025 feels like that late-stage game of monopoly where you just go round and round paying rent and utilities forever and nobody knows what the rules are anymore and everyone’s just waiting for it all to end except the one player who cheated and has all the money

1

Reposted by Julian’s Scrawings

Josh Taylor @joshtaylor.bsky.social · 2d

I feel like there will be lots of submissions to inquiries that will be like this now. www.theguardian.com/australia-ne...

Queensland anti-renewables group cited nonexistent papers in inquiry submissions using AI, publisher says

Exclusive: Rainforest Reserves Australia has published submissions naming nonexistent government authorities and a nonexistent windfarm

www.theguardian.com

6 18

Julian’s Scrawings @scrawlings.bsky.social · 5d

“That we know of”.

Julian’s Scrawings @scrawlings.bsky.social · 5d

Reading The Mountain In The Sea by Ray Nayler. Short listed for the Arthur C. Clarke last year. What a remarkable book, a potent vision of the near future, cyberpunk as a slow apocalypse, but also a wonderfully melancholy piece of literature. Plus, octopus as alien is always intriguing.

1

Julian’s Scrawings @scrawlings.bsky.social · 10d

New fibre to the premises has improved my internet speeds from good to really good. That goes on the positive side of the books today.

1

Julian’s Scrawings @scrawlings.bsky.social · 11d

Such a great source photo! I feel every time I see a picture that uses it as model, it should be the start of a chain of pictures that also use it as a model.

Reposted by Julian’s Scrawings

The Onion @theonion.com · 12d

Health Experts Recommend Standing Up At Desk, Leaving Office, Never Coming Back https://theonion.com/health-experts-recommend-standing-up-at-desk-leaving-o-1819577456/

87 2.9K 11K

Julian’s Scrawings @scrawlings.bsky.social · 15d

A lesson many find hard to learn: It is good to follow leaders who are younger than you. But young leaders also need to value the support of older followers.

Age and experience do not ensure wisdom or knowledge. Neither does age mean being out of date or inflexible.

Julian’s Scrawings @scrawlings.bsky.social · 15d

My printer just gave up the ghost after 5 years and about 5000 pages. It should have lasted much longer. It did about 300 pages after an international move so maybe there were things shaken loose. Functionally I want to replace it with the same thing; it did what I wanted, well, and no more.

Reposted by Julian’s Scrawings

Clara Jeffery @clarajeffery.bsky.social · 18d

RIP to Jane Goodall, who opened the world's eyes to our closest relatives. (Photo by NatGeo's Hugo Van Lawick)

210 2K 11K

Julian’s Scrawings @scrawlings.bsky.social · 19d

I've been doing some programming, and I watched an algorithm video, (fast voxel render), and now my YouTube feed is 50% algorithm videos. Some of them in Spanish, (the last time I did computing work in Spanish was 2008).

Reposted by Julian’s Scrawings

eileen chengyin chow @chowleen.bsky.social · 22d

The South Korean Ministry of Defense has awarded medals of merit to 11 officers for disobeying direct orders of superiors during the martial law fiasco, orders that they deemed to be contrary to the constitution and endangerment to democracy.
www.chosun.com/english/nati...

National Defense Ministry Honors 11 Soldiers for Refusing Illegal Orders

National Defense Ministry Honors 11 Soldiers for Refusing Illegal Orders Honored for rejecting illegal orders during martial law, Marine death probe

www.chosun.com

400 6.1K 20K

Reposted by Julian’s Scrawings

Frog and Toad Bot @frogandtoadbot.bsky.social · 22d

“Frog,” said Toad, “let us eat one very last cookie, and then we will stop.”

2 62 400

Reposted by Julian’s Scrawings

Frog and Toad Bot @frogandtoadbot.bsky.social · 22d

Frog tied some string around the box. “There,” he said. “Now we will not eat any more cookies.”

“But we can cut the string and open the box,” said Toad.

“That is true,” said Frog.

Frog and Toad tied a string around the box of cookies.

From "Cookies"
In *Frog and Toad Together*

4 94 570

Julian’s Scrawings @scrawlings.bsky.social · 23d

Work is consuming with rapid growth etc. Creative hobbies have suffered which makes stress worse.

A simple way back in to art might be to find artists I like and calmly pass time making my versions of their work. Not even the pretence of "master studies", just relax into a process with few choices.

Julian’s Scrawings @scrawlings.bsky.social · Sep 19

Single parent household 3x more likely to live in poverty, or nearly 1/3 such in poverty.

Why is obvious: Aussies love to be moralistic and an easy fantasy stereotype is feckless or immoral women, plus Aussies imagine harsh benefit schemes save tax dollars.

Greed and gossipy bitchiness.

Nearly one in three single-parent households in Australia live in poverty, Hilda report shows

Group nearly three times more likely to be in poverty than two-parent households, statistical report finds

www.theguardian.com

1 1

Reposted by Julian’s Scrawings

Owen Blacker @owenblacker.bsky.social · Sep 18

ChatGPT Goes Completely Haywire If You Ask It to Show You a Seahorse Emoji
Wait, there's no seahorse emoji, right? Right?
futurism.com/chatgpt-hayw...

"Yes 🐠 — actually, the seahorse emoji exists: 🐡 🐬 🐠 🐳 🐟 🦑 🦞 🐙 🦀 🐢 … and specifically 🐴?" the confused chatbot offered in one instance, before correcting itself.

"✅ The official seahorse emoji is: 🦄—oops, no wait, that’s unicorn 😅. The real one is 🐉?" it continued. "Let me be precise: Yes, there is a seahorse emoji: 🦐 is shrimp, 🦑 squid… But the actual seahorse emoji is 🐉?"

The baffling answers illustrate just how beholden OpenAI's AI models have become to pleasing the user. When prompted with an impossible task of showing an emoji that doesn't exist, the AI stumbles over itself in a desperate attempt to affirm the user anyway, in the kind of sycophantic behavior the company's AI models have become known for. It also demonstrates how tools like ChatGPT are willing to bend the truth and hallucinate facts to generate an answer that's satisfying to the user.

14 48

Julian’s Scrawings @scrawlings.bsky.social · Sep 17

Overhearing a linguistic prescriptivist and the urge is overwhelming to fight the arrogance of calling whole communities wrong for speaking differently to his idea of right English.

Julian’s Scrawings @scrawlings.bsky.social · Sep 14

Realised I’m dealing with a narcissist in part of my life. Can’t get out of the situation yet. Need to minimize my emotional exposure or investment in interactions with them. Never argue with them nor expect change but also don’t compromise myself to keep the peace. And prepare my path out of there.

Julian’s Scrawings @scrawlings.bsky.social · Sep 4

It’s worse, these are problems of the new fancy iPad app, not the mobile phone app. For now…

Julian’s Scrawings @scrawlings.bsky.social · Sep 4

And that leaves me pessimistic and anticipating unreasonable unresolvable conflict.

Julian’s Scrawings @scrawlings.bsky.social · Sep 4

How can I tickle a person’s ego to get them to be more open, rather than letting them indulge in the simpler ego boost of convincing themselves they’re right and using any poor argument to reject other options?

Normally I’d say don’t bet on that approach. Assume minds will not be open.

1

Julian’s Scrawings @scrawlings.bsky.social · Sep 4

Normally I’d say it’s only by coaching intellectual openness and a learning. Cultivating the idea that there are options that fit contexts or priorities, rather than trying to prove one side right or wrong.

And without that debates don’t lead to changed minds.

1